Generational Computing

CSCI 1060Fall 2006

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 2

First Generation• Large computers, difficult to program• Primarily used by scientists and engineers

for faster and accurate calculations• Vacuum tube technology, software was in

machine language (0s and 1s)• Algorithms were translated into binary or

hardwired• First electronic digital computer was built

in the late 1930s by Atanasoff & Berry

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 3

First Generation• ABC was used as a basis for a general-

purpose computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) in 1944 by Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert

• First commercial computer was the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 4

Second Generation• Took place in the 1950s improving hardware

and software• Transistors allowed faster calculations with

lower power consumption in a smaller space• The transistor was developed in 1947 by John

Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Telephone Laboratories

• Assembly Language helped bolster software• Compare binary to assembly, advantages?

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 5

Third Generation• Hardware continues to improve with the

development of the integrated circuit (IC) in 1958 at Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor

• Small scale integration (SSI) and medium scale integration (MSI) become common terms

• SSI – fewer than 100 components on a chip

• MSI – hundreds to a thousand components

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 6

Third Generation• Third generation languages (or High

Level Languages, HLL) appeared for software

• FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator), COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), C, Pascal, Ada, and others

• More code with fewer errors• Compare to assembly

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 7

Fourth Generation• Continued miniaturization of transistors• LSI (Large Scale Integration) –

thousands to ten thousands components

• VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) – 104 to 109 components

• Entered the market in the late 1970s to early 1980s

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 8

Fourth Generation• Fourth generation languages useful to

businesses for storing records and generating reports began to appear

• Often built using third generation languages• Very similar to databases, but more

powerful• Users could generate application programs

using menus• Could generate very complex reports

through the same menu system

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 9

Fifth Generation• Parallel processing and distributed

computing using networks is becoming popular

• Advancements in artificial intelligence, speech synthesis, and natural language recognition also become important